People Power Party pushes back hard against deadline; Democratic Party warns it will act unilaterally if talks drag on
By Joo So-hyun, The Herald Business
National Assembly Speaker Cho Jung-sik told both parties Monday that he expected them to submit their lists of standing committee assignments by noon on Wednesday.
Cho made the request at a meeting with the floor leaders and senior floor management officials of both parties at the Assembly that afternoon. "I say this out of an urgent conviction that we cannot indefinitely delay the normalization of the Assembly while ignoring the National Assembly Act," he said, adding that he was "strongly urging both parties to reach a magnanimous agreement."
The two parties had held six rounds of negotiations over the composition of the second half of the 22nd National Assembly, including the allocation of standing committee chairmanships, but remained deadlocked over who would chair the Legislation and Judiciary Committee. Cho's move amounted to an effective deadline intended to push the parties toward a swift and amicable agreement.
Democratic Party of Korea floor leader Han Byung-do told reporters after the meeting that his party would report to the speaker on the committee composition by noon Wednesday. "We can no longer tolerate foot-dragging and stalling," he said.
Han added that his party would follow the legal procedures the speaker was pursuing, and that if the other side was judged to be stalling until the very end, the Democratic Party would act decisively.
Asked whether the Democratic Party might push through committee chairmanship appointments on its own, Han said there were two options — taking charge of all standing committees itself, or having the Democratic Party unilaterally decide the allocation. Han had earlier said the party would either divide the seats 11 to 7 in line with the seat count, or make the decision alone.
The People Power Party pushed back sharply against Cho's request. Floor leader Jeong Jeom-sik told reporters after the meeting that he had expressed "strong displeasure" at the speaker's request during the closed-door session. "The speaker invokes the National Assembly Act, but this is fundamentally a directory provision — it carries no penalty and is not something that must strictly be followed," he said.
Jeong went on to say the move was "a harbinger of forcibly constituting the Assembly and launching the second half of the legislature in outright violation of the cardinal principle of compromise that governs how the Assembly operates," and stressed that "an agreement could be reached as early as tomorrow if the other side comes to the table with room to negotiate." He nonetheless reiterated the party's standing position that it would not yield the chairmanship of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee.
addressh@heraldcorp.com
